Transitions always bring new energy, or at least they should. Ever since one of my mentors, Anna Shapiro, gave her famous lecture on transitions and I was shown both the necessity and potential of the tool, I haven’t been able to watch theatre the same. All too often I come upon a show that works great within the scenes, but when we arrive at a transition everything comes to a screeching halt; the lights dim, music comes up, shadows move about the stage without grace and as if invisible, while they move furniture or simply reposition. In that moment all the energy gets sucked out of the room, the tautness of the play’s action sags, and the audience is given an opportunity to wonder if they left the stove on at home. As I reported in the last journal entry, Mikayla ended our research phase beautifully and I was determined grab the baton, keep the energy high, and hurtle us forward into the experiment phase. And then the realities of our world came crashing in on a personal level. Let me say up front that everyone is okay and virus-free. However, in the middle of last Thursday’s session, I received an email from my two-year old’s daycare that there was a positive case in his classroom. After my head stopped spinning, I signed up for the next available test on Saturday, did the math, and realized that there was a more than good chance I would not have the results in time to attend our next rehearsal. The negative came through shortly before rehearsal, but into the Zoom Room I went… 

Monday. This experience was eye-opening. I knew that the sound quality wasn’t going to be good and that I would feel distanced from the ensemble, but somehow, I wasn’t prepared for how much. I could barely make out entire sentences unless the person was directly in front of me. I thought about those who have been in the room and became frustrated that I haven’t tried to do more to address the situation. Needless to say, we will continue to try and figure this out—the Zoom room isn’t going anywhere. Fortunately, this was a day where I did not have a ton to actively do; I still wish I could have been in the room, but if there was a day for me not to be, this was it. Over the weekend, I had worked hard on creating specific prompts for each group in order to provide them with anchors in the brainstorming of experiments. But I wanted my voice to end there and truly give them agency in this part of the process; it’s their turn to create. Now, not being in the room, I was forced to be hands off and, honestly, I probably needed it. First, we revisited the American Stock Characters as I hoped that the Character Design and Stagecraft teams would use them in their brainstorms. We refined them a little, but it was good to put them out in the space. Next I went over each individual prompt and asked if any clarification was needed. This was the only part I really wish I could have been in the room for; even if I received the silence I was given, if I was there, I may have been able to turn that part more into a conversation and less a directive. But they said they got it and went to work. This left me alone in my Zoom room staring at a wall. It wasn’t that dramatic; I had journaling to catch up on. Still, it was a weird feeling. Fortunately, I knew Mikayla was running the room and could troubleshoot if need be and would report back. 

I asked all the groups for three pitches to take to their mentors and, unsurprisingly, they all went about it a little differently. The Character Design group was the most methodical, working through each pitch with a third of the allotted time, while the Scenic/Audience group spent most of their time on the one pitch they were excited about and left little time for the other two. Finally, the acting group came up with three responses to each prompt question and then arranged them into three different pitches. Mikayla reported back just what I was hoping: it was a lively room of conversation and collaboration. At the end of the day, that’s all I could ask for. 

Thursday. Mentor day. Today was an opportunity to take advantage of the faculty’s expertise by challenging the ensemble to refine, develop, or overhaul the pitches. Rob Berls accompanied the Scenic/Audience team to their three sites across campus, while Casey Watkins visited our Character Design team on the big screen in a classroom. Meanwhile, I took the Stagecraft team to the theatre because, well, I think I just wanted to be in the theatre. 

I can mostly speak to how it went in my room, though I’m sure there were similarities throughout. I purposely didn’t look at their pitches in the shared folder, but as I drove to campus, I thought about how hard it must have been for this group as everything they’re pitching is heavily reliant on where the actor is and how the actor is dressed. I told them as much to which they laughed and nodded, but the way they went about it from there was super smart. They had divided their pitches into Abstract, In Between, and Realism. In that way, they could respond to whatever was put in front of them. We began with abstract, which I must admit is the way I’ve been leaning the entire time, though I’ve tried not to be too obvious about it (I imagine my ensemble might disagree). They were giving me general ideas like vocal projection to be heard through the mask fabric, so I challenged them to think of other ways to deal with that specific challenge. As the silence hung on the stage a thought occurred to me that was brand new. What if we split up the vocal performance from the physical performance? I threw it out to the group and the ensuing brainstorm is the kind of work I was envisioning in the early days of conceiving the PTP. The team latched onto the idea immediately and I just got to sit back and listen: We could put the vocal actors behind the plexiglass screens, so that they wouldn’t need masks. Maybe we mic them up depending on the audible challenges of the screens. What fun it would be to rehearse your roll as either the voice or the body with the other! The voice actors could play different parts. Then again, so could the body actors. Maybe it would be cleanest to have the vocal actors be a chorus who could play different parts and the body actors would be consistent. Where would the voice actors be? Would they be visible? It would be cooler if they were and after 5 minutes, the audience would understand the theatrical choice. What if the vocal chorus were all dressed as the soldiers that Keller killed with his faulty parts? Oooooohhhhhh. That last idea came from Kerigan, who was Zooming in, and even from afar she sent chills through the room. I wanted to go experiment this this idea in the moment, but alas that was not the work of the day, so we continued on. They added the idea of having the body actors of the main characters stay consistent, but have the secondary characters come out of a smaller chorus, who could also vocalize the stage directions. I quite like that idea. Arthur Miller’s stage directions are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever read and burdening the vocal actors with them seems like too much. This would mean having a vocal chorus, main body actors, and a secondary chorus that could play different physical parts and vocalize the stage directions. Not sure what the mask solve is for them, but we’ll get to it. We then talked about staging and foundational rules that could start to develop a new physical language. If we are given some ability to achieve levels, be it different platforms or a raked stage, we could visually represent what Uta Hagen calls the dominant and submissive characters. We could also block spatially, telling the inner story of the characters’ relationship on stage; for instance, the scene between Anne and Sue would be played with both characters on opposite ends of the stage. Finally, we talked about how to deal with a character like Anne, who exists on the outside of the Stock Characters. In the end, we decided that she should have a relationship with the audience somehow and perhaps even a stage presence throughout, whether it’s in the audience or above the stage, looking down. This brainstorm was wholly satisfying and while I wanted to stay in this world longer, it was important to move on. 

Next up was the other end of the spectrum in realism. In this pitch, we do everything as we normally would but keeping social distance and in mono-color masks with the hope they would fade away to the audience. There was talk of trying to hide the kiss or have it backstage. The conclusion we kept coming to is that the audience would continuously be pulled out of the story and back into the pandemic. Trying to do it the old way with new constraints just isn’t viable and at that point I gave them the out of nixing that pitch. They took it rather quickly. With a small smile, I moved us along to the In Between. 

In this world we talked about having more of a technological assist, through area or personal mics and the possible addition of projection. We talked about the masks being our Covid masks, but with character gestures in the design. Then we shifted to how to solve the blocking and the intimate moments and this is where it got interesting. At first, I just couldn’t see how we were going to land on something as interesting as the abstract pitch, but then we turned a corner. Chandler had mentioned a while back that her friends touch feet as a way to communicate a hug and I brought that back into the space. That thought had really stuck with me, so I broke it down a little more. Very much like a kiss, if I walked up to a stranger and did that, it would not be okay. And there’s a tentativeness to the gesture, which also needs to be accepted and met with a mutual understanding. It really works. Out of this came the differentiation that, if the Abstract pitch calls for expressive gestures, then the In Between calls for behavioral substitution gestures like touching feet for kissing. I could see this working. We moved onto how the blocking would work and agreed that if we began the show blocking actors normally but well beyond the 6 feet away from each other, then the audience would quickly trust that they don’t have to worry about the six feet rule. I’m curious if that is scalable; if it would work for the entirety of a scene, let alone a show. But then, that’s why we’ve given ourselves space to experiment. If it is possible, it would make the stakes of that kiss tremendously high. At this point, we were getting word that the other groups were finishing up and, being in a good place, went back to join them. 

The Character Design group reported that they learned a lot, like you have to have a reason for every choice that you make. I went into graduate school an instinctual artist that then confronted this idea at every turn. I learned to continue to follow my instincts, but then work back and justify each choice based on my point of view. It was a hard, but essential lesson to learn. I’m excited to see the work that arises. The Scenic/Audience group had a mixture of excitement and fear in their eyes (which I always find is a good sign in my work) as they told me that they’ll be meeting outside of rehearsal and overhauling all of their pitches. Good stuff. Now all I have to figure out how to do the hardest and yet most essential activity in all of theatre: Collaboration.